


the elegance of a wild heart

by siehn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s12e12 Stuck In The Middle (With You), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siehn/pseuds/siehn
Summary: Castiel stares vacantly at his hands as though they might offer some kind of answer in lieu of his absent father, but they are just hands: trembling and dirty and most recently held tightly by the humans who had changed him in such profound ways.





	the elegance of a wild heart

**Author's Note:**

> I was very lucky to be accepted as a writer for the SPN Short Stories anthology, and this is my contribution! Should you have the book, you can find this story in the Autumn chapter.

The rancid, yellow wallpaper looks too much like the sickly gold of Ramiel’s eyes.

 

Castiel forces himself to swallow back the urge to gag as the phantom, horrifying taste of his own liquefied organs wells up in the back of his throat. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall into his hand, rubbing at his temples slowly; exhaustion weighs heavily on every part of him and everything is overwhelming, including the drag of his fingertips against his skin. Something in him aches, deeper than the wound from Michael’s lance had been, though his Grace is just as useless against it.

 

It’s a familiar ache. Familiar in the same way the beating of the human heart in his chest is familiar, or the way failure lingers on him in a way he can’t seem to shake. The familiarity does not make it any more pleasant, and he shifts his weight in the chair without thinking about it in some vain effort to ease it. The slide of his clothes against the worn vinyl is loud in the dark silence of the room and Castiel jerks his head up to stare at the beds where Sam and Dean sleep fitfully. He breaths out ragged relief when they don’t stir; it had been hard enough to get them to stop hovering over him, their distress loud and pressing in at him from all sides. Cas watches them sleep for a long moment, focusing on the rise and fall of their chests as they breathe, trying to lure himself into some semblance of calm, but his hands are still shaking and he can still feel the phantom fire of his Grace rotting away inside him.

 

Some part of him wants to be out in the open where the room’s walls aren’t pressing in on him, reminding him of the barn in those moments before Crowley had broken the lance, when everything had started to fade except the pain and the _taste_. He glances out of the window over the table, sighing at the drizzle of rain beating steadily against it, only partially obscured by the worn, rust-colored curtains. Staring at them too long makes nausea surge in his stomach and he turns away to stare down at the dirty carpet instead.

 

Reminding himself that he’s an angel does little good to quell the too-human reactions happening inside him; his Grace is barely a buffer anymore, and he shuts his eyes tight against the memory of being on that couch, dying. He’d been so afraid and desperate and yet some distant part of him was _relieved_ , too. Castiel stares vacantly at his hands as though they might offer some kind of answer in lieu of his absent father, but they are just hands: trembling and dirty and most recently held tightly by the humans who had changed him in such profound ways. Finding himself alive after his tearful declaration, owing his life to _Crowley_ , is still an almost bewildering concept; he finds his eyes straying again to the figures on the beds, his hands closing into fists so that he might rub his thumbs against his palms. The dirt trapped in the lines scrapes against his overstimulated skin enough to hurt, giving him just enough assurance that this is _real._

 

Castiel isn’t entirely sure what to do now; it all feels so anti-climactic, though at the same time it’s like an overwhelming void has swallowed him whole, pulling him down, down into the shadows and drowning him in darkness. He swallows again, but the putrid taste lingers and his head doesn’t clear no matter how much he tries to push the _feelings_ away and bury them beneath his Grace. He is as poor an excuse for an angel now as ever, and it would have been better had he been allowed to just _stop_. His shoulders droop against the back of the chair as he slumps into it, sighing quietly against the pressure building in his chest: this too, is familiar. He remembers it from those long days and nights in the bunker before Lucifer, when everything had bubbled up to the surface and getting lost in the TV was easier than facing the reality clawing at his throat.

 

Not even Netflix would help him now.

 

He takes a deep breath, feels his lungs expand with the air before he exhales, wondering what he is now. His eyes are sore from stinging tears that angels shouldn’t shed; he’d felt the burn of them in the back of his throat before they’d spilled over, just a little, when he’d begged the Winchesters to leave him there. He could probably ease it if he wanted, but it seems a monumental effort for something so small as the sting of salt in his eyes. Everything seems a monumental effort after nearly dying, but every part of him also itches to get _out_ and away, feeling far too exposed after surviving his deathbed confessions.

 

Even now, every resurrection feels like a punishment, like a command that he keep marching no matter that his feet are blistered and bleeding, his feathers burned, and his strength faltering. He is so _tired_. An exhaustion beyond even the physical sense. A tiredness of existence, and he does not know how to reconcile it with surviving yet again when he shouldn’t have.

 

And yet, Cas looks over at Dean and Sam, watches Dean’s face shift through a complicated set of emotions as his fists close on the sheets while Sam is all but invisible beneath the mound of blankets on his bed. He begged them to leave him because he didn’t want to watch them die and they stayed. He doesn’t know what to do with that. Their willingness to fight for him in the face of what looked like certain death is a strange, guilty comfort to the fallen angel, and he isn’t sure he deserves it when he has so little to offer them in return. He doesn’t know what to do with the way they’d hovered after either, loud in their distress and clear in their intent to make sure Castiel was okay, neither of them quite believing it despite having seen him completely healed with their own eyes.

 

He’s not used to being the focus of their combined worry, but Dean’s gruff affection was clear in the way he stuck close, and Sam’s earnest kindness was almost too much. Castiel is at a loss for all that he claimed them as family. He loves them, but he doesn’t know what to do with it in the quiet spaces, when there’s nothing to be done and no way to prove himself. Instead, he sits silently in the dark, forcing harsh breaths through the panic clawing at his chest, through the way he wants to vomit, to cleanse himself. His grip on the hand rests of the chair is white-knuckled as he tries to focus on the way the rain drips down the window, leaving a trail in its wake.

 

As he watches the first rays of muted, pink-and-orange sunlight stretch across the sky, his tired heart _aches_ and Castiel feels very human.


End file.
